


Time After Time (I will be waiting)

by Winterstar



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Fix-It, M/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-09-06 22:29:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20298973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterstar/pseuds/Winterstar
Summary: Steve returns the infinity stones and someone waits for him...





	Time After Time (I will be waiting)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MusicalLuna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MusicalLuna/gifts).
  * Inspired by [steve-rogers-partially-in-uniform](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/511228) by MusicalLuna. 

> This is my story for MusicalLuna's beautiful [art](https://musicalluna-draws.tumblr.com/post/180262326122/image-steve-rogers-partially-in-uniform)
> 
> The title is from Cindy Lauper's song - Time After Time.

The clock ticks. A distance sound to his ears. Tony waits. Like a widow of a seafarer waiting for a sailor to return, but it isn’t a sailor but a soldier. He waits. His one hand clenches over the other, the wounded one, the one that will never work again. He shivers as he waits. 

There’s no time.

No time like the present.

Or the past.

Where is he?

The clock ticks. The others are around him, waiting as well. He both wants them here and wants them gone. He should have insisted that Sam go with Steve. The new quantum realm/time machine platform had been constructed in short order, too short. They cut corners. It barely pulled enough juice to power the converters. Wherever or whenever Steve appeared on the other end, he could have been injured, harmed, or worse. Killed.

The clock ticks.

He should have been back by now. Tony should have gone with him, but then he looks down at his withered hand. He’ll never be Iron Man again. He can’t even lift his arm; his shoulder joint is toast. Half of his face is frozen by the burn with abraded skin and scar tissue. He can barely move his face on one side, the sight in one eye is compromised. He’ll never be Iron Man again, but that doesn’t matter to him. Nothing matters to him except the empty platform as they wait. 

The clock ticks.

He made Steve wait too long. He made himself wait too long. He’d denied a growing attachment, a love, and settled away from the Avengers. He needed rest, he needed peace, he convinced himself. Inside his chest he feels the roil of self-hatred, self-deprecation. Tony Stark never needed peace a day in his life. Denying the truth, denying that he needed the fight led to so much lost time. But once he accepted the fight in his soul, the spirit of a warrior, he’d come to his senses. It meant another upheaval in his life, but it also meant that Pepper was safe away from him, away from all this madness. Their split was amicable, and they stayed friends. It was good. Yet, Tony still gave his heart away. 

Too far, too distant. His heart aches.

The clock ticks.

How much longer, Tony wants to say. Both Bucky and Sam are looking at Bruce and then at each other. They’re worried as well. Tony closes his eyes and tries to remember the brush of Steve’s hand on his jaw, the quiet moment in the wooded area they had before Steve left on his mission. Steve hadn’t even flinched at the scarring on Tony’s face. He’d touched him tenderly and with purpose. The moment Tony nearly died had been the moment he had been reborn. 

Without a second thought, Tony followed Strange’s unspoken command, his wordless explanation of that one chance in millions. He had the technology wrapped around him. He’d been meant to do this since the moment his own weapon exploded in his face all those years ago. Maybe it was pre-ordained even before that, when his father hired Stane. Stane was the one who eventually had Tony kidnapped and nearly killed. It set Tony on a journey to invent the Iron Man armor, to revise it, remodel it, reinvent it time and again. To finally working with nanotechnology and designing an armor that would always be with him, that could shape and reshape according to his needs at the moment. The armor would be the key, the armor with its nanites would steal away the stones and Tony would snap his fingers and change the universe. 

He should have died. But the nanites protected him from the worst of the gamma radiation. Tony wasn’t stupid. He created nanites to answer to his every whim, why wouldn’t he ensure protection against radiation. The gauntlet Bruce used to bring back the vanished had protection as well – even the Hulk needed protection. Bruce suffered. Tony suffered. Time would heal all wounds he told himself on the battlefield as he snapped his fingers. 

The clock ticks.

Tony mourns. He recalls how Steve fell down in front of him, worn and hopeless as the worst of the damage scorched across Tony’s right arm and the right side of his face. It could have been so much worse. The armor protected what it could. The nanites shielded him within their vibranium cores. But the battle caused weaknesses in the armor and that’s what wounded him. Even as they won, Steve crawled to his side and wept. He hadn’t known the depth of Steve’s feeling before that moment, he hadn’t even known his own. Yet, as the seconds drifted by and the world filled with ashes again, Steve curled around him, willing him to live, murmuring words that to this day Tony cannot remember. He wants to have the chance to ask Steve. He wants to know what Steve said. He wants another chance.

Chances mean another time to try.

Chances mean time.

The clock ticks.

He glances at Bucky and then Sam, hoping to get some clue as to why it’s taking so long. Bruce had said it would take less than 10 seconds. Steve would be back. He’s not. The time platform is barren. The truth scoops out what’s left of Tony’s heart. He stumbles to the side of the platform, his arm aches. His face is raw and numb. Asking the obvious question isn’t worth it. He knows. Steve escaped the truth. Steve left him here to wonder and to hope. Steve left him with the remains of his reckoning, his epiphany that he loved someone from a far for too long. Time steals chances. 

As a young man, Tony had a chance to accept a ride on the space shuttle. It was a glorious opportunity, but he hadn’t passed the tests because he went to the evaluation too drunk to see straight. The shuttle exploded on its return journey. Tony counted himself as lucky then, but maybe he wasn’t lucky at all. Maybe he was meant to be on the flight, maybe he should have died then, maybe none of this would have happened had it not been for Tony and his needs. 

Time steals life.

The clock ticks.

He shivers and waits and sees the empty bench by the lake. He sat there the other day with Steve. They were quiet and calm. He longed to talk to him, to speak the truths that bubbled on the surface. If he didn’t soon, the pot of anxiety would boil over. His courage abandoned him, even after facing down Thanos, facing the idea of laying his heart bare hurt and frightened him. So he had said nothing. He only sat with Steve. Once in a while he saw that Steve peered at him with quizzical eyes and an expression that Tony could only describe as hopeful. Steve was the bravest man Tony knew, and if he never managed to muster the courage to say anything, how the hell did he expect Tony to do it? It is too late now.

The clock ticks.

Onward the day marches.

A whine catches his attention – a mechanical whine and then the platform shakes with energy and lights flash. The air around them shifts and smells of o-zone like a lightning strike. A figure appears on the platform and wavers a bit. Tony dashes for the steps but before he can get there, the helmet comes down.

It’s not him.

Natasha.

Tony gasps and holds back tears. Is he crying for joy or sorrow? 

Bruce hollows out a cheer and rushes for the platform. Steve has been forgotten. Massive green gray arms wrap Natasha in a hug nearly smothering her. She smiles and there’s laughter. The sounds around him choke the hope out of him and Tony teeters. Natasha pushes away from Bruce and looks around as if she’s searching for someone.

Steve.

She’s looking for him.

The clock ticks.

“Where?” she says.

And Tony knows. Something went wrong. Went horribly wrong. Somehow Steve rescued Natasha but sacrificed himself in her place. Why? How? He wants to scream. He wants to die. The hope that had blossomed in his chest unravels and he can’t hold onto it. It’s slipping through his fingers, lost, an unwoven mess.

“He should be here by now,” Natasha remarks and Tony wants to scream.

Someone is asking, “How did you even get here?” It might be Bruce, but Tony’s numb and shaking. His fingers on his left hand tingle with it, his right hand is dead. Like his heart, it’s dead inside. Everything is washing away.

“Steve said something,” Natasha answers. “He said Tony would like it.”

Tony’s gaze pops over to her. He didn’t realize he’d been staring at the platform, hoping against hope Steve would appear. “What’s that?” He hears himself say.

“He said that all magic is just science we don’t understand. He said it took him a while to figure out. A few years, but he had time. All the time in the world.” She smiles. “He figured out the magic behind the soul stone exchange.”

The clock ticks.

It takes all his willpower to not growl at her, _he was supposed to come back. he was supposed to be here. Not you._ It’s cruel to even think, brutal. So he swallows down the darkness creeping inside and shudders at his fragility.

“We didn’t have enough Pym particles for both of us.” Natasha explains.

“What?” Tony says and narrows his eyes at her as if she’s out of focus. The whole world is out of focus.

“He couldn’t get back. We only had enough for one trip. He’d used the rest on his journey to return all the stones. We only had the particles I carried.” She glances at the platform again. “He was going to get more. He told me to come back – said he would see me in a minute. He could get more he said.”

That doesn’t compute. “You had yours. You had enough to get back. He should have had enough.” 

“He used his Pym particles for the return of the stones. He told me it took several tries.”  
Natasha looks down. There’s a finality in her words.

“So, he’s stuck?” Sam says and grimaces.

“On Vormir in 2014?” Tony pieces together the story. It hurts. God it all hurts. 

The clock ticks and time marches on – a harsh and dark god. 

“Not anymore.”

Tony spins on his heels and there’s Steve, walking up the pathway from the damaged and shattered Avengers compound. But this isn’t the Steve who left the platform only minutes ago. This Steve is older – slightly. He’s hair is a mess; he has a beard. His uniform shows its age. It’s tattered and old. 

“Steve?” It’s Bucky saying his name because all Tony can do is gasp. 

“Yeah, sorry I took so long. Thought I would get back sooner.” He thumbs behind him at the rubble of the compound. “Thought I could help out. Seems it’s a bit harder to get across the galaxy than I thought it would be.” 

“Let me get this straight,” Sam says. “You’ve been trying to get back to us since 2014? 

You’ve been traveling across the galaxy for 9 years?”

Steve gives him a bashful grin. “Sorry I didn’t know the formula of the Pym particles. I did try and infiltrate Thanos’ fortress but that didn’t go so well. I figured he must know how to do Pym particles since he got his whole army here from 2014.”

Tony stands there in stunned silence. He realizes he’s standing there with his mouth agape. He shuts his jaw with a jarring snap.

“I knew I had to get back,” Steve says. Tony expects him to be staring at Bucky and Sam, but no. He only has eyes for Tony. “I knew I needed to be here. I waited before and I lost out. I waited 9 years this time. I don’t plan to miss out again.”

“Miss out?” Tony asks and the world around them falls away.

The clock stops.

“I waited too long. I’m not waiting anymore. Tony.” 

Before he knows it, Tony’s crossed the distance between them. Steve wraps him in his arms. Tony crushes his bruised and ruined face into Steve’s shoulder. He doesn’t realize it until he pulls away, but he’s crying. Deeply. Honestly.

Steve joins him. Tears streak his face. “God, how I missed you.”

His hands are on both sides of Tony’s face, as if the scars and horrible mutilating burns mean nothing. Don’t bother him at all. Steve stares into his eyes, and then his gaze drops for only a second to go back to his eyes. He moves in closer and their mouths brush, touching, seeking. A test of a promise. Tony whines a little into the kiss, but he grasps at Steve and hugs him. Their lips crush into one another and Tony wants to crawl into this man, wants to fit into him and be with him forever. This man crossed the stars for him. 

Tony pulls away for only a second and nods in silent consent. They kiss again, longingly as if the kiss can’t possible give them everything they desire. Tony lingers with the kiss, tasting and touching. How did they go from team mates just hours ago, to this? And then Tony remembers the moment he used the gauntlet and Steve broke down before him. Destiny entwined them. They were meant to do this; they were meant to break so that they could come together again and be stronger for it.

When they finally separate for air if nothing else, Natasha smiles at them. “It’s about time.”

Tony can only laugh. Time marches on. A desperate ugly god waiting to swallow up hope and lives but this time, this time they won. This time they stole life from it. Their time heist not only saved the universe, it saved them.

THE END


End file.
